Last week's ghost story by Shamus Frazer was so good I decided I needed to search out something else by him to read this weekend. Unfortunately I could not find any more of his stories anthologized in any of my books or any of the collections handy at the library. So, on to a little online searching and I discovered that Ash-Tree Press in Canada has (happily) has published his short stories in ebook format (I think there is also a cloth edition, which was a little out of my price range). I believe (though don't quote me on this) that Where Human Pathways End is the complete set of Shamus Frazer's ghost stories, of which there are ten. The ebook contains one poem as well.

I think Shamus Frazer is one of those authors who during his time publishing was popular and somewhat acclaimed but has over time fallen by the wayside and is not much read these days. It's a pity as last week's story "Florinda" was excellent and one of my favorite short stories this year, and the two stories I read this week nearly as good and very entertaining--perfect fall reading. If you are a fan of ghost stories or stories that fall into the horror/suspense category, or if you just like good storytelling, I highly recommend looking for Frazer's work.

Shamus Frazer wrote novels in the 1930s but didn't get on to short story writing until the 1960s. His first two early novels were seen as natural successor's to the work of Evelyn Waugh--"a master of satirical irony". Why is it that writers of ghost stories often are also teachers or in some way associated with academia? Frazer studied Modern History at Oxford and went on to teach English and History at a preparatory school. He later moved to Singapore where he was a lecturer at a teacher's training college. Apparently he was well known in Singapore and every Christmas Eve would read one of his ghost stories on Radio Malaya. Several of his short stories were anthologized in his lifetime ("Florinda" being the most popular), but it wasn't until after his death that they were collected and published in one volume. I'm curious to read his story, "The Tune in Dan's Cafe" which was adapted to TV and aired on Rod Serling's Night Gallery. Maybe that will be one of next weekend's stories (and I think I can find the episode online).

There was something familiar about the first story I read, "The Fifth Mask". Had I read it before somewhere and just didn't remember? In any case, it was very creepy. In both stories I read there is a narrator looking back on an event that is particularly horrifying. So much so that the narrator will avoid a place or stick to a familiar routine.

"Remember, remember--the Fifth of November? I only wish it were possible to forget it. But every year at this time one is reminded of what has been, and--of what is to come."

Our storyteller keeps to the highways at this season. Is the Fifth of November a bit like our Halloween? Not in the begging for candy aspect but for donning masks? As that is what the two young boys do in this story. They don their masks and set out asking people to "spare a penny for the old guy". As a child the narrator lived in the Northern town of Failing in Darkshire. It was a foggy night--"not thick but moving in swirls". He was nearsighted so over his mask he had to wear his glasses. They come across an old lady in a field who is willing to "spare a penny" for the boy who will unmask her--as she has taken one of the boys's masks and covered her own face.

"'Give me the masks, she said, 'and I'll show you a trick, shall I?' . . . An optical illusion, if you like long words."

Would you? Would you remove her mask? After reading this story, I must say, I wouldn't.

I do love trees. The bigger and more twisty the better really. But then again, after reading "The Yew Tree", I might not want to come across one in the dark and alone and if it was especially threatening looking. I have a very vivid imagination and now that I have images in mind from this story . . . well, I'll hug a tree like this one in the daylight but maybe not at night. The narrator in the second story recounts an experience of a friend so horrifying that when the friend had a chance to move as far away as Australia he took it. The two had been visiting a botanical gardens and a tree was reminiscent of one that was rather terrifying in England.

"You know that great banyan tree by the wooden bridge at the farther end of the lake--a grotto of knolled roots and python thick columns formed by the fibres coiling down from the branches like Rapunzel's hair to root in the soil? Well, nothing would induce Martin to go past that tree. He stuck on the edge of the lake, looking ghastly. We had in the end to retrace our steps."

And so the friend tells his tale. A few year's previously he had been sent to a place near Doomchester (what names--so very evocative!) to work. A pretty place--"there's the remains of Robin's forest, and those great feudal estates, the Princedoms."

A bleak, dark place by the sounds of it. The sort of forest that ends up in a Disney movie about fairy tales. It was a dark and stormy night sort of place. Everyone told him in another part of the valley, but why travel back and forth when there was a deserted cottage, so charming-looking, to stay in close by. Deserted for a reason. Warning sign there, but then we'd not have such a scary story to read otherwise.

I've not read three of the stories in the collection and will continue on with a few more next weekend. I'm going to try and finish by month's end. Shamus Frazer's stories would be good anytime, but they are perfect for October.

Finally a thriller that is not the 'Next Gone Girl' or a pale imitation of The Girl on the Train. I'm quite impressed by Lauren Beukes's The Shining Girls. I wasn't entirely sure starting out that it would live up to the cover blurb of "a tense, compelling thriller", but in the end she won me over. Not only was it a good thriller, but it had a little extra substance and best of all-it is a fresh and unusual story with a plot ploy that I'd not come across before. That says a lot in a genre that is flooded by stories. Lots and lots of stories that are the 'next best thing' but often the stories are very 'samey' if you know what I mean.

I don't tend to pick up stories that involve serial killers. I read lots of crime novels and mysteries and like suspense but I prefer to avoid stories that are overly graphic or gruesome. A little bit goes a very long way with me. It seems that whenever you pick up a book involving a serial killer it is an automatic flag that there will be lots of blood involved and nasty, messy crimes that are twisted with descriptions that are far too vivid for my tastes.

Well, The Shining Girls does involve a serial killer. There is some description of murders, a few scenes that are unpleasant and somewhat graphic, but nothing was too over the top or gratuitous. The killer is nasty and beyond reproof but Beukes doesn't 'glamorize' him, if that makes sense. The crimes are nasty is every sense of the word, but it's how the author handles all this that I can appreciate.

So, yes, Harper is a serial killer. Oh yes, one more thing, you will need to suspend disbelief just a tad to really appreciate the story, which begins in 1974 with a young girl playing outside by herself and is approached by a man who only talks to her. He gives her a plastic toy pony and tells her (or thinks it anyway) that she 'shines' and that he'll meet her again someday. That's what he tells all the girls.

Rewind time all the way back to 1931 and again we meet Harper. He's not a nice person in 1931 and less so over the decades, through which he can slip into and out of almost at will. Thanks to the House. It's all down to a run in with a blind woman wearing a man's coat. And those men he's trying to get away from. The men who work him over and leave him. That's why he finds the House. The coat, the men, the violence, the House.

"Everything happens for a reason. It's because he is forced to leave that he finds the House. It is because he took the coat that he has the key."

The key to time. The key that enables him to slip into and out of time. The perfect way to commit the perfect crime. Crime undetectable. He meets the women as their childhood selves and then later when they are young women he goes into the future and and murders them. He always takes a trinket and leave a trinket from someone he has murdered. No matter that the trinkets are anachronistic. To Kirby he gives a pony, which has not actually been manufactured yet. But who knows. Who looks so closely. It's not too far out of time. He gets better as he goes. He knows what to do and how to do it and how not to get caught. You see the girls have this light about them. They shine--just like the constellations in the sky. It's almost predetermined that it is going to happen. It's like a self-fulfilling prophesy. He can't not do it. And he would have gotten away with all of it had it not been for Kirby.

Kirby is the little girl who Harper meets in 1974. And then again in 1992. He kills her, he finishes the job. Or at least he thinks he does. But maybe Kirby's light shines just a little too brightly. She manages to save herself with the help of her dog. Harper must make a quick get away and jump back through time to avoid getting caught. He thinks he covers his trail. He thinks he completed the job. He really messed Kirby up and he almost finished her. But she survives. And she becomes obsessed with him. She fears him but she can't live the way she lives--with a scar across her neck where he slashed her and she almost died.

I'm not giving anything away by telling you that The Shining Girls is a story of a murderer who travels through time leaving behind him a trail of bodies. I think it quite clever and Beukes handles it well. It is something of a stretch of the imagination, but it really works. The story is not told in a linear fashion and it is not just Kirby's and Harper's stories. The other women are victims but also not 'just' victims. They are characters who have their own stories to tell. Initially I was wary of how much detail of the lives of these women was given. You start to become attached to them knowing their lives will not have happy outcomes.

Is this really what I wanted from a story that is suspenseful and knowing how things would end? It felt almost like being punched in the gut each new time. But this was purposeful--Beukes didn't want to show the women as a "sexy dead body, with her tousled blonde hair and one discarded stiletto, lying in a pool of blood." Thank you. This is why I avoid most novels featuring serial killers. Almost always the victims are women and the crimes are not pretty. And sometimes it does feel like they are nameless and faceless but they are beautiful and something sadistic happens and it is meant to be entertainment. And that makes me uncomfortable. Beukes's novel sometimes made me a little uncomfortable, too, but in an entirely different way. A way, on reflection, which I think is good. And yes, it is a page turner, too. It did take me a short while to feel the rhythm of the story and see where it was going, understand what was happening. By then, of course, I was well and truly hooked.

I'll be looking for her other novels now. This was my last RIP read (I managed three this year plus lots of good stories). I'll still read a couple more stories to fit in with the season, but The Shining Girls was the perfect way to end my RIP reading. By the way, which cover do you like better? I read a UK edition of the book (second cover--on the left of this post), which I think worked nicely with the story.

Not much reading went on this past weekend--short stories or otherwise, but I did manage to squeeze in Shamus Frazer's "Florinda" from Twelve Tales of the Supernatural edited by Michael Cox. It was originally published in the London Mystery Magazine in 1956. I'd never come across Shamus Frazer before this. He only published a couple of novel and it sounds like later in life he wrote supernatural fiction, of which "Florinda" would be a great example. He died in 1966.

Much like John Wyndham's Chocky, which I recently read and very much enjoyed, this is another example of a child who has an imaginary friend. In this case, however, the friend is not here to make friends and study a different life form, but she has much darker and destructive intentions.

Jane is a very average little girl who lives with her mum and dad and has a kind nanny named Miss Reeve with whom she goes in daily walks around her parents estate. That sounds like much more than it really is. Her father inherited a family home that is in a state of disrepair, a "sombre peeling house" called Fowling Hall and park and woodland that are in a shambles with overgrown bushes and paths that need to be cleared. Roger, Jane's father, has an obstinate notion of settling there much to the chagrin of his wife Clare. Also typical of the time and the class no doubt, Jane, though much loved by her parents, finds them quite distracted. She'll talk to her mum but find she can say almost anything without her actually "hearing" her.

So when Jane tells her mum about Florinda, she is only half hearing her. Chatting about Jane's afternoon walk she talks about Florinda, and when asked who Florinda is, Jane replies--a doll, or she thinks she is anyway. By then her mum is lost again looking in the mirror, already her thoughts a mile away.

"Mummy, I've told you. She's a doll, I think, only large, large as me. And she never talks--not with words anyway. And her eyes can't shut even when she lies down."

Jane first spotted Florinda on one of her walks with Miss Reeve. She saw her in the lake--the part not covered and blocked by brambles. She looked into the water to see her reflection--only there were two Janes looking back. Only it wasn't Jane. The face was smiling back. But she's shy, Florinda is--shy and a little sly, too.

On this particular day, when Jane's mum was so distracted, Miss Reeve hadn't had a nice walk by the lake. Her stockings had a "rather beautiful ladder" according to Jane--she had stumbled in some brambles--the ones in the woodland that really need to be cleared away. When Jane says that the brambles must be left as they are, of course no one listens to her. They mustn't be cleared away as Florinda wouldn't like it.

"If Daddy has the bushes cut down what will poor Florinda do? Where will she play? There will be no place at all for the little traps and snares she sets; no place to creep and whistle in, and tinkle int laughter when something funny happens--like Miss Reeve caught by the leg and hopping."

Poor Miss Reeve and her laddered stockings and there's only one way to make sure this doesn't happen again. Cut back the brambles, and clear the paths. Too bad no one else knows about Florinda, or they might have just left well enough alone. And when the grounds are tidied up, it will put Florinda in a wicked mood. And it will disrupt everybody.

"Florinda" is a wonderfully creepy story. It would make a terrific movie--just a little devastating but very dark and unsettling. Now I must see of I can find any other stories by Shamus Frazer. He is perfect RIP reading. I just stumbled upon his story--much like Miss Reeve stumbled on those brambles. Oh, just thinking about what comes next sends a few shivers up my spine! If you come across this story, I heartily recommend it.

Sometimes dreams do come true. Only sometimes it's better that they don't--especially when the dream is really more of a nightmare. Nightmares make for good fodder when it comes to creepy tales, and tales of the supernatural, however. E.F. Benson's "The Face". written in 1927 and collected in Twelve Tales of the Supernatural (edited by the late Michael Cox) is 'autumnally' creepy and very much on Daphne du Maurier terrain and even has similarities to Elizabeth Jane Howard's short story from two week's ago. It felt familiar in a way, though he gives his own spin to the waking-nightmare tale.

While the story is a perfect one to read in fall (imagine a sunshiny day, though brisk with crisp crunchy leaves underfoot), it takes place in the sultriness of summer. As a matter of fact, it is not only from bad dreams that Hester is trying to get away from, but from the heaviness and oppressiveness of the heat.

"Hester Ward, sitting by the open window on this hot afternoon in June, began seriously to argue with herself about the cloud of foreboding and depression which encompassed her all day, and very sensibly, she enumerated to herself the manifold causes for happiness in the fortunately circumstances of her life."

Why such ominous feelings have been overcoming her she is unsure since she has an adoring husband and adorable children. She is young and leads a comfortable life and is in want of nothing special. But she has been plagues with a recurring dream. The dream began in childhood. First a dream that isn't particularly threatening, but always the dream is followed on the next night by another which "contains the source and core of the horror." From this she would awake screaming. It's been ten years at least since she was visited by it, but just the previous night it once again invaded her sleep. On the surface the dream seems harmless.

"She seemed to be walking on a high sandy cliff covered with short down-grass; twenty yards to the left came the edge of the cliff, which sloped steeply down to the sea that lay at its foot. The path she followed led through fields bounded by low hedges, and mounted gradually upwards. She went through some half-dozen of these, climbing over the wooden stiles that gave communication; sheep grazed there, but she never saw another human being, and always it was dusk, as if evening was falling, and she had to hurry on, because someone (she knew not whom) was waiting for her, and had been waiting not a few minutes only, but for many years."

As her dream continues she comes upon a clearing and a derelict church that seems almost to be falling into the sea so close is it to the edge of the cliff. After a hiatus of so many years all of a sudden the dream begins recurring as if a warning, as if time all of a sudden is pressing on her--like an hourglass tipped over and the sand has nearly run out of the top.

More horrifying, her dream had always been only of the path and the sea and the cliffs and the church. But all was empty. It was a place inhabited by non one. Her dream was as if looking on to an empty scene. And then the dream comes again and with it, a face. Out of the haze of her dream--"a pale, oval light, the size of a man's face, dimly luminous in front of her and a few inches above the level of her eyes." The face is perfect on one side, but the other is deformed and seems to look at her with a sneer and lust. And she imagines him saying "I shall soon come for you now."

Dream and reality come together when at an exhibit of portraits painted by Vandyke she sees the face. Not in the crowd of people in attendance but hanging on the wall. A portrait of Sir Roger Wyburn looks back at her. The same face of her dreams. A portrait of a man who has been dead for more than two centuries. Now she has a name to put to the face. And the dreams seem to come even more frequently. So much so that her husband begins worrying and sends her to a doctor.

"To give way to this evermastering dread, would have been to allow nightmare to invade her waking life, and there, for sure, madness lay."

The doctor suggests time away--in the country away from the heavy heat of the summer which can be doing her and her restlessness no good at all. A complete change is needed and so to the coast with brisk sea air--coolness and complete idleness. Plenty of sleep and no nightmares and after a week alone her husband will find her a new woman. And it does work. The village lay on a lip stretch of land reclaimed from the sea. The nightmares cease and she begins to reclaim her health and vitality. And she even finds that she has a new energy to perhaps explore and see lies beyond this ridge . . .

But oh dear. The coast means the sea is near. And with the sea there are usually cliffs.

I think I am going to return to this collection next weekend and give Shamus Frazer's story, "Florinda" a go. Your homework this week? Tell me about one good ghost story you have read--recently or even not so recently. Was it really scary, or just nicely creepy?

I've yet to pick up and read an NYRB Classic that I've not loved or admired and usually I both love and admire the stories I read. I need to get back into my habit of reading my subscription books as they arrive as nearly always each one is a new discovery for me. The August book is John Wyndham's Chocky and it seemed a perfect RIP read. Although I have a couple of his books on my shelves and often pick them up and consider reading one, I had not yet gotten around to any of them. You know what's coming next, right? Now that I have one very good book by Wyndham under my belt, I will be reading the rest. I've even ordered a couple that sounded quite appealing that I am watching the mail for.

Chocky was Wyndham's last book, published in 1968 just a year before he died and after an eight year hiatus. His earlier novels had been written in fairly swift succession of each other. It wasn't quite what I expected but that doesn't mean it was in any way a disappointment. As a matter of fact I can easily see it as a strong contender for my favorites list (if I don't read another one by him still this year that knocks this one off the list). In Margaret Atwood's afterword she calls Chocky "close to a domestic comedy" and it is quite light in tone. Apparently his books are known as "cozy catastrophes", which I quite like the sound of. I was expecting end of the world devastation or something equally as suspenseful, but Chocky ends on quite a pleasing and hopeful note. It does have an underlying message to it, which is just as pertinent today as it was then.

Margaret Atwood was a great fan of Wyndham's books when she discovered The Day of the Triffids at the age of eleven. Can you imagine Atwood with a Venus flytrap as a pet when she was young? She had one she kept in a goldfish bowl and she talks of feeding it pieces of lean meat on a toothpick. So it is not much of a stretch to imagine her reading Wyndham's adventure stories, or those end of the world stories where earth is being invaded by monsters. Or her own subsequent writing (did you know her father was a biologist and they had some interesting mealtime discussions about genes?).

So, what then, is Chocky? Rather, who is Chocky? Actually Chocky is hard to describe. Matthew's parents are sure Chocky must be an imaginary friend, since they often see him talking to someone who isn't there. And not just talking, but sometimes having heated discussions that border on arguments. Their younger daughter went through a phase where she had an imaginary friend, too, though she dropped her quickly enough when she met a real little girl who was more interesting. Matthew, however, is eleven. A little old maybe to have an imaginary friend? And this imaginary friend seems to be very well informed to say nothing of talented and intelligent. So how could it all being coming from Matthew's imagination?

Matthew isn't the story's narrator. We see him talking and listen to his conversations, but it's his father who is sharing this story. Matthew is an adopted child, and his sister Polly came as a surprise after the fact. Matthew's parents will wonder if there is something about him they don't know that they should when Chocky comes to light. Matthew is somewhat hesitant to share Chocky with his family. And when you learn something about Chocky you will understand why. Chocky is not physically there, yet she/he inhabits Matthew's consciousness from time to time. I guess you could consider Chocky an alien? Once Matthew and his father determine to call Chocky 'she', she seems to be a palpable presence, and an interesting one. Not threatening, but seeking. She chooses Matthew (and isn't it always a child that seems most inviting--their naivety or freshness, maybe?--like a blank page--one that is open to new ideas and experiences) as her way into the earth's realm, to study it.

Chocky doesn't feel in the least threatening to Matthew, though his parents will, unsurprisingly, find the situation confusing and unbelievable. But things begin happening. Chocky comes from a place so far away that she cannot even begin to describe to Matthew about her planet so unlike earth is it, though she'll try. She thinks much of what we do here doesn't make much sense--and I refer mostly to our science and inventions and use of natural resources (you can see what was on Wyndham's mind here), yet Matthew has a hard time conveying to his parents and later to doctors what Chocky is trying to tell everyone. He understands mostly, but being only eleven he doesn't have the words to explain.

It's when people, other than his parents, begin noticing that things are not quite right that the story gets especially interesting. How can Matthew know the things he knows or do the things he does when he seems very much an average eleven-year-old boy? This is very much a page-turner of the story (sorry to rely on the cliché). I don't want to give too much of it away since the fun of it is to see how things steamroll and how Matthew must cope, and Chocky as well. As interstellar beings go, Chocky is quite likable, if aggressively opinionated. And Matthew is one of the more admirable and likable characters I've come across in a long time. I feel like I ought not say this about a science fiction story, but it's really quite sweet. It might not be the typical sort of story filled with menace to drive its point, but in this story, the point is well-taken anyway. I'm virtually sliding this one into your hands. If you've not read it, I think you should.

My September NYRB subscription book is Leonard Gardner's Fat City, which I think just might be finding its way into my bookbag this week. I've already decided I will be subscribing again next year and hope to do a better job of reading each monthly release. If nothing else, I will enjoy reading this year's previous books at my leisure.

So, this weekend two short stories by Edgar Allen Poe who does the macabre better than almost anyone I know. His stories are often weirdly creepy. The first I liked very much the second I only felt a little "meh" about but was still an entertaining read. Both are from the little Bantam Classic, The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings. I seem to be chipping away at this book. My all-time favorite Poe story is and will likely always remain "A Cask of Amontillado" which I have read and reread and would have done so again this weekend but thought I should really try something new.

First up is "The Masque of the Red Death" which I think is fairly famous and it reminds me of the folk tale "appointment in Samarra" about the man who tries to cheat death by traveling far away from the city where he is meant to meet his death. As it turns out he happens across him in this other city knowing he had a meeting with him elsewhere. So the moral is that you can't escape death.

In Poe's story not only does Prince Prospero try to cheat death but he snubs it and the rest of the population along the way. So maybe in the end he gets what he deserves. The red death is a pestilence that has devastated the country.

"Blood was its avatar and its seal--the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, where the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour."

Hale and hearty the prince is, and in his happy way he invites a thousand (so many?!) healthy knights and dames from his court to go with him and take up residence in one of his "castellated" abbeys. It will offer itself as a fortress against the red death, and they have amply provisioned it to last any assaults on his refuge. The group doesn't cower in fear of the terror the death has inflicted on the population. No, they have a grand party instead--the outside world can fend for themselves. They have "all the appliances of pleasure" including jokers, musicians and ballet-dancers. "It was a voluptuous scene that masquerade."

Poe tells in great detail of the seven rooms that make up the interior of the abbey--each decorated in its own color. The last one is done up in black. And no one dares enter it. Inside that last room stands an ebony clock and with each circuit of the minute hand the masqueraders pause . . .

" . . . and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation."

But when the moment passes the nervousness passes and the music begins once again. You know where this is going, don't you? The hours tick tock away. The party goes on and just what is happening in the outside world? How long can it all go on? All those revelers dancing away in their costumes and when the hour sounds they stop and look worriedly at each other. Phantasms is what they appear to be. And then a phantasm is amongst them. He is masked as if he is the "red death". And Prince Prospero wishes to unmask him. To find out what happens next, you can read the story here.

I assumed the red death must refer to the plague, but I read that it might refer to tuberculosis from which his wife was suffering at the time. It might also refer to an outbreak of cholera which had been happening in Baltimore. And if you want to get really deep, I read that the "red death" might well be sickness of humankind--otherwise known as Original Sin. Or you could just take it as a nice, creepy Gothic entertainment. It was adapted to the screen in the mid-1960s and starred Vincent Price. I wonder if I can get my hands on that one?!

* * *

I've not left myself much space to write about "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar". It just didn't do much for me, and seems to rely on the more gory aspect of of the story to give thrills. The story recounts a case of mesmerism at the moment of death of a man suffering from TB. I think when it was published (in 1845) Poe (or the publisher?) didn't dissuade the reading public from thinking that such a thing was possible. I'm just not sure what the point of mesmerizing the poor man was meant to be? At the point of near death M. Valdemar summons the narrator to mesmerize him, and in this state he remains for seven months. Just in a state of near death, but not death yet not being alive either. Do you want to know what happens when the man is woken? Read on. Otherwise skip the quote!

"As I rapidly made the mesmeric passes, amid ejaculations of "dead! dead!" absolutely bursting from the tongue and not from the lips of the sufferer, his whole frame at once --within the space of a single minute, or even less, shrunk --crumbled --absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome --of detestable putridity."

Eww, gross. But maybe you need one of these sorts of stories for RIP, too! If you are up for a little mesmerism and want to find out what happens for yourself, read along here.

I'm not quite sure what I am in the mood for next. Something a little more contemporary maybe. Any suggestions?

"She awoke very suddenly with a feeling of extreme fear. It was not from a dream; she was sitting in the driver's seat, cramped, and with rain blowing in through the open window, but something else was wrong . . ."

Surely the titular story, "Mr Wrong" must be the story described as "a haunting journey into the macabre." There was something familiar about it when I began reading. A déja vu. As it turns out just last year I borrowed a collection of her stories in which this one was included. No doubt as I was looking for a suitable story I skimmed the beginning of this one, though it was from an anthology of ghost stories that I read "Three Miles Up" (this story is also included in Mr Wrong). After revisiting my post I recall what a wonderful story it was making me all the more anxious to read more of her stories, and I was not disappointed.

"Mr Wrong" is a longish short story, just over 40 pages but perfect for story-setting and increasing the sense of suspense and dread that Meg feels in her new aqua-blue (a nice color for the ladies the car salesman tells her--never trust a car salesman, I think) MG mini that is her pride and joy and purchased with the help of her parents. Technically it is only new to her but is actually a used, but newly refurbished car. You've heard of haunted houses, but what about a haunted car? Meg should have been alerted when she asked the salesman whether the car had ever been in an accident and he replies with a smile:

". . . it hadn't been an accident, just a slight brush."

But then who would have suspected just what that meant. So, here is Meg new to London having moved from a northern city to work in an antiques shop in the King's Road. She shares a flat with two other girls both with looks and social lives to match. Meg is a bit plain and shy, a little awkward compared to her roommates.

"She spent very little in London: she had bought one dress at Laura Ashley, but had no parties to to to in it, and lacked the insouciance to wear it to work. She lived off eggs done in various ways, and quantities of instant coffee--in the shop and in the flat."

Her rent is modest which is a good thing as her budget is tight and there isn't much of her check leftover, which all goes towards saying that when she realizes there is something amiss with the car, she is sort of stuck with it, or with selling it at a particular price and not a penny less. The thing is, there is something not quite right with the car. And when she is ready to sell, fearful of even getting into it, no one else seems willing to buy it.

Her first inkling that something is amiss is the strange feeling that comes over her when she stops to rest a few moments and falls asleep by mistake. It was a bad dream, but something more.

"A sound--or noises, alarming in themselves, but, in her circumstances, frighteningly out of place. She shut her window except for an inch at the top. This made things worse. What sounded like heavy, labored, stertorous even painful breathing was coming, she quickly realized, from the back of the car."

Surely it is all just her imagination, as the return journey home after an uneventful family visit turns out to be nothing special. So when on the following weekend, another wet and cold evening, she sees a young woman quite unremarkable in appearance yet with a look of desolation about her, she offers her a lift. Strangely, though, two things seem to happen at once--the girl gets into the backseat and a man, of whom Meg takes an instant dislike hops into the front seat. She thought they were together, a boss and his secretary, but later the man denies seeing anyone. And then things go very, very wrong after that. It is very much a journey into the macabre, a story worthy of Daphne du Maurier or Ruth Rendell. A haunted car. A long drive north in the rain. A strange man and a mysterious woman. Something not quite right. Ghosts? Or something worse?

Beware of picking up hitchhikers. Or of used cars that have been in a "slight brush" even if not in an accident. A nicely done story, perfect to elicit a few chills or feelings of dread. In case you've never read her, Elizabeth Jane Howard is wonderful. I think I might just keep going with this collection, which contains nine stories but no rush to get through them all right away. The nice thing about story collections is they are perfect for dipping into when the mood strikes.

Carolyn Hart's The Devereaux Legacy, published in 1986, is very much in the vein of stories by Mary Stewart or Elizabeth Peters. It is a story of romantic suspense, but comparing the authors, I would call this story: romantic suspense-'lite'. It's a slender novel, a quick and entertaining read, but it is also a little thin story-wise. It has a beautiful and atmospheric setting, but there is not much in the way of history or description other than the house where the action takes place and not a whole lot of depth to the characters or the development of their romance.

Elizabeth Peters is known for her detailed research with a heavy dose of history, and Mary Stewart's exotic locales whisk the reader away to foreign and inviting lands with a rich characterization and tension between characters. Both authors have pacy, quick-moving and suspenseful plotting. There is a bit of all that in the Hart story as well, but I think the reason for its 'being' is less the unraveling of a mystery or edge-of-your-seat nail-biting action, rather, this is a story that is mostly about the romance between characters and any ghosts or danger is incidental--a way simply to bring the hero and heroine together.

A number of Carolyn Hart's novels have been reissued as "Carolyn Hart Classics" and this one has a brief but interesting introduction by the author. During the late 70s Hart wrote seven novels that were all turned down by publishers. When it came to mysteries from this period readers (or maybe publishers who brought out all the books at the time) wanted either hard-boiled detective novels or traditional cozies written by English ladies a la Agatha Christie. Hart's mysteries were simply not selling. At least not in the guise in which she was writing them. So, she began tailoring her stories to the reading public, and the reading public wanted romance. Romance sold.

"I took an idea for a mystery, added what I hoped would be an appealing romance, a ghost who may presage evil, and a beautiful old South Carolina plantation."

The result was the story I just read, which was originally sold to Harlequin as a gothic romance. I like the rejacketed editions. I guess tastes have changed once again--no heroine on the cover swooning over a hunky hero. This has a much more appealing cover which only hints at a family drama perhaps, or a story with some mystery to unravel. Actually in thinking of the story and how I would describe it here, what comes to mind is a Lifetime movie. You know the sort--heroine gets involved in shady business, or is being harassed or stalked but is in the sort of iffy circumstances that require a little help from a friend, usually of the male persuasion. Love at first sight, romance and happiness on the horizon if only she can get herself out of a dangerous situation.

That's pretty much what happens in The Devereaux Legacy. From the very start, when Leah meets her cousins for the first time, particularly Merrick, you know she is smitten and romance is on her mind. It is as much a tale of suspense for the ghost, and the omen of death as for the blossoming romance between Leah and Merrick. There is some tension, both romantic and dramatic. Leah is the true blood relative of the Devereaux's--the cousins were siblings adopted into the family. They may still be Devereauxs but blood is blood it would seem.

Leah's parents died when she was only a baby, and she was raised by her grandmother. Something happened on that fateful night in South Carolina--something bad that resulted in her being whisked off and all ties severed. She and her grandmother lived in Texas where she fully plans to return, but she has to find answers--she had discovered that the plantation in South Carolina was the last place her parents were known to have been. Why was she never told the truth. The article she finds by chance tells of the Devereaux family, their elegant home, and the ghost that haunts the property. When the Whispering Woman is seen, she foretells the death of a family member.

There is a locked tower that everyone says is closed due to age and instability that just screams come and explore me. Strange accidents begin to occur that the family tries to explain away and then the death of a family caretaker all create a build up to the uncovering of the mystery. There is love at first sight and then misunderstandings and misgivings about the true intentions of both lovers. Will they get together or is one behind the mysterious occurrences and the appearance of the ghost?

Being a romance, you know pretty much how things are going to turn out, but it is still fun getting there. The Devereaux Legacy is a nice, quick, entertaining read, but decidedly lighter fare--a nice way to while away an afternoon anyway. It is the first of my RIP reads and I have now moved on to John Wyndham's wonderful novel Chocky--not scary especially--but much edgier and not a romance. Maybe if I can squeeze in one more read I will ratchet up the tension just a little bit more? Have you been reading along with RIP? And if so, anything good?

A story about the dangers and pleasures of hashish! Who would have thought our beloved Louisa May Alcott of Little Women fame could write such a decadent and sensational story! Actually I have read a few of her more sensational writings, written under a pen-name, in the past and know she was the breadwinner for her family and likely relied on such provocative stories to earn money. I wonder which ones she enjoyed writing more? As much as I love Little Women (which came after this story), the second half of the book moralizes a bit too much for my tastes these days. "Perilous Play" which appears in A Marble Woman: The Unknown Thrillers of Louisa May Alcott, edited by Madeleine Stern is really great fun. A little on the silly side, but fun nonetheless. I imagine it must have been quite shocking for readers in 1869--quite lascivious. The sort of story you read when your parents think you are doing something else!

"'If someone does not propose a new and interesting amusement, I shall die of ennui' said pretty Belle Daventry."

Famous last words. A game of charades, would have been out of the question I suppose. Faced with an endless afternoon of boredom her friend Meredith is happy to comply, and given his talents at inventing amusing activities, the group knows he will come up with something interesting. What he pulls from his pocket is a little box of tortoiseshell and gold and filled with bonbons. Not to be confused with sugarplums these little morsels will amuse in "in a new, delicious, and wonderful manner." What Meredith has in hand is hashish.

"'Oh, yes; it's that Indian stuff which brings one fantastic visions, isn't it? I've always wanted to see and taste it, and now I will,' cried Belle, nibbling at one of the bean-shaped comfits with its green heart."

One prudent young lady tries to dissuade the group knowing that people end up doing all sorts of queer things, but six can surely do no harm. Taking too many might elicit visions of phantoms and frenzies and a touch of the nightmare. Having taken the drug the experimenters each sets off on their own giving in to foolish and uninhibited behavior. Two of the group have decided to follow the moon and go sailing. Not a wise idea under the circumstances and pass a frightening night in the maelstrom of a storm believing they are all but lost.

Alas no moralizing tone in this story. As a matter of fact no ghouls or spirits but the luck of the devil since not only are the pair rescued but their nighttime adventure. A nightmarish sleep follows--"incoherent wanderings haunted him like parts of a grotesque but dreadful dream." Yet dare I tell you how the story ends? Surely shocking to readers of the 19th century--our foolish pair not only live to tell their tale but fall in love in the undertaking of hashish experimentation. The young man, who has now the courage to share his true feelings for the young lady says (ardently!) "Heaven bless hashish, if its dreams end like this!".

So, not technically a ghost story, but Victorian sensationalism seems fitting for this time of year, too.

* * *

I did read a story by a writer who is likely to elicit a few chills up the spine however. I'm not sure why I have never tried any of H.P. Lovecraft's stories before. I guess I always assumed that as he wrote horror fiction I wouldn't really enjoy it. But thanks to Caroline for suggesting his story "The Outsider" to me. I found it in a collection of stories called The Dunwich Horror and Others. It's a story of what seems to be a young man looking back over his childhood who has been raised in the confines of what seems to be a great house or a castle. He is cared for in a rather indifferent manner and with little in the way of affection by a caretaker.

"Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness. Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of antique books, or upon awed watches in twilight groves of grotesque, gigantic, and vine-encumbered trees that silently wave twisted branches far aloft. Such a lot the gods gave to me--to me, the dazed, the disappointed; the barren, the broken. And yet I am strangely content, and cling desperately to those sere memories, when my mind momentarily threatens to reach beyond the other."

This childhood spent in solitude and loneliness made him yearn to leave this place. He learned all he knows from the books on the shelves, but he has no memory of hearing his own voice let alone the voices of others. He narrates a story of his past where he dreams of leaving, escaping into the sunshine filled world that he sees in the illustrations of books. And he waited and dreamed and bided his time until that moment when he could finally escape.

He tells of his adventure of finding a way out of the castle and into the world outside and he describes the things he sees and the people he encounters. And it is with a growing sense of dread and understanding and horror the reader begins to understand what his situation means. This is quite an effective story and very well done. My own realization of what was happening coincided almost exactly with the narrators. Maybe it was due to my own inexperience reading stories of horror, or else Lovecraft is just a very good storyteller. I suspect it is the latter (as much as my own inexperience).

Not sure what I will pick up next. Part of the fun of short stories, and of ghost stories especially is the search for something really good.

I finished Carolyn Hart's The Devereaux Legacy last night and I would have written about it for today, but between reading those last fifty pages or so and then thinking about what I want to read next, I ran out of time. Besides, I just gave a teaser a few days ago, so I will save writing about it until next week.

So, on to the pleasure of choosing a new RIP read. I do have a little pile of books at the ready to choose from, but you know how that goes--the moment you select books and create a pile of potential reads, every other book (that isn't on the pile) sounds just a little better and tempting. So I had another glance around my mystery/thriller/crime novel stacks and came up with a few other books.

These are a bit hodge-podgy and none traditional ghost stories, but all seem suspenseful or thriller-ish, so in no particular order:

The Devil's Disciple by Shiro Hamao -- Two Japanese novellas from the late 1920s considered "horror mystery literature" which took 1930s Japan by storm. "A heady mix of the gothic, psychological and sexual, these first English translations of Hamao's work are a perfect introduction to a key figure in Japanese and crime fiction."

Birdman by Mo Hayder -- I pick up a novel by Mo Hayder with just a little trepidation knowing of her reputation for writing somewhat graphic crime novels. Coming close on the heels of a very tame and gentle romantic suspense novel I am not sure I am mentally prepared for a story Elle magazine notes will "scare the hell out of you." On the up side it is set in London which is quite appealing to me at the moment.

A Hank of Hair: an Exquisite Danse Macabre by Charlotte Jay -- I know nothing about this Australian writer, but I see that this novel was published in the mid-1960s. It just sounds really creepy. "A mounting sense of the supernatural brings chill into the room . . . A tale of subtle horror, to keep you awake at night."

Chocky by John Wyndham -- This is last month's NYRB Classics selection. Chocky is a little boy's imaginary friend who seems rather inquisitive. " . . . Wyndham confronts an enigma as strange as anything found in his classic works The Day of the Triffids or The Chrysalids--the mind of a child."

I guess I shall sit down with my new little pile and flip through the book, read a few random lines and maybe the first few pages and see which one grabs my attention--unless anyone has a favorite or can recommend one over the other?

I am in the midst of reading a short story by Louisa May Alcott (one of her sensationalist stories) and have another by H.P. Lovecraft waiting for me.

I had thought I would read two books (one for September and one for October) as well as a weekly story, but if I choose another slender novel I might just be able to squeeze in a third book as well.